The Megiddo Expedition is grateful to all of its wonderful donors. Our work in continually enhanced through your generous support! If you are a friend of Megiddo and wish to support our ongoing research, next season's excavation, and our ability to give more participants an amazing dig experience, click here for donation information.

Quick Links

Home

Welcome to The Megiddo Expedition!

Megiddo is the jewel in the crown of biblical archaeology. Strategically perched above the most important land route in the ancient Near East, the city dominated international traffic for over 6,000 years — from ca. 7,000 B.C.E. through to biblical times. As civilizations came and went, succeeding settlements at ancient Megiddo were built on the ruins of their predecessors, creating a multi-layered archaeological legacy that abounds in unparalleled treasures that include monumental temples, lavish palaces, mighty fortifications, and remarkably-engineered water systems.

News

The Directors of the Expedition wish to send our most sincere THANK YOU to all of you who participated this season! This was one of the best seasons ever and this is due in large part to the enthusiastic, hard-working, and just plain amazing group of students and volunteers. We're already looking forward anxiously to 2018, when we know many of you will be back to do it again!

The article presents an
intra-site investigation of the Strata VIIA and VIA faunal remains at Megiddo,
Israel, which date to the LB III and late Iron I respectively. We examined
social disparity between the populations of two areas of the city. Our finds
indicate a difference in social status and division of labour: a dichotomy
between producer-consumers and consumers, who most probably interacted. Viewed
in light of other types of remains at Megiddo, these findings reveal that the
inhabitants of one sector engaged in agriculture and cottage industries, while
the people in the other part of the city, close to the palace, were more
affluent – related to the local ruler and administrators. Our study
demonstrates the potential in intra-site investigation at large, multi-period
sites.

During the ongoing
excavations of Area Q at Tel Megiddo, a variety of on-site geoarchaeological
analytical methods have been used in the study of Iron Age occupations dating
to the Iron Age IIA. The aim of this approach is to optimally combine
macroarchaeology with microarchaeology in order to reconstruct activities that
were carried out within an Iron Age urban neighborhood. The macroscopic finds
indicate that this area belonged to a quarter that features both domestic and
public structures. Of particular interest are (a) evidence for abandonment and
spatial differentiation of activities in Level Q-5 associated with a large,
well-built structure with 18 pillars; and (b) localized small-scale destruction
associated with ephemeral metalworking activity related to occupation during
Level Q-4. Similar approaches have been carried out at other sites in Israel
(e.g., Tel Dor and Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath), yet only at Megiddo have we been able to
use these methods to study a large excavation area (ca. 200 m2). The results
shed new light on the variability of human activities in public and domestic
contexts in an urban environment, and contribute to understanding the uses of
space and the phenomenon of destruction by fire.